agonyaunt | (no subject)

My husband was carrying our 16-year-old dog outside for a walk when the dog flinched and fell out of his arms. Her back legs were paralyzed in the fall, and given her age, the prognosis is not good. My husband feels terrible. But he can also put things out of his mind, so I feel alone in my sorrow. I fluctuate between blaming him and saying mean things (“You gave our dog a death sentence”) and knowing it was an accident (“No one meant for this to happen”). How should I handle my resentment? We are the parents of two children under 3, and we’ve been together for 14 years — so we need to keep working as a team.

WIFE

It’s hard work to maintain a healthy relationship, so I commend you for noting the sour dynamic that has begun to infiltrate yours. (We can’t fix problems until we name them.) Still, nearly every pet owner I know — and parent, too — has a scary story about an accidental dereliction: “The dog’s collar broke away from its leash.” “And then the baby rolled off the sofa.” “I didn’t lock the stroller properly.” You probably have one, too. There is no such thing as perfect caregiving!

Now, you don’t describe your husband as careless, so let’s assume he isn’t. My hunch is that the huge responsibility of two young children and a senior dog has made you (understandably) anxious about things that might go wrong. And your husband’s accident heightened your fears. You may also need more time to process your feelings than he does. Nothing wrong with that!

Discuss this issue with a close friend or a therapist. I would spare your husband any more talk about the “death sentence” he imposed until you understand why you can’t yet forgive him for an accident. And keep working on it. It’s great that you’re focusing on this problem before it becomes a crisis.

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With aged humans the fall is sometimes due to the break and not the other way. Wonder if it could work that way in a situation like this. Probably not, though.

Not if Husband was carrying the dog as LW says in the letter.

But this was presumably not the first time the dog had been carried outside for a walk. The dog flinched at something - and it could be anything. His last few months, Finn flinched every time we walked into or out of a shadow. It's why I stopped taking him on walks at all and only brought him out to the backyard.

68 percent of elderly dogs have dementia, and in a lot of them that dementia is accompanied by fearfulness and anxiety. If the dog is sixteen years old, and has sharply declining mobility (hence the carrying), and is flinching at shadows, time is running out. They were going to have to make that call sooner or later, probably sooner.

I disagree-- I think the break COULD have preceded the fall, BECAUSE the dog was being carried. if the dog's spine was compromised by osteoporosis, the angle of the hold to carry it could have fractured the bone. My mother's german shepherd's spine was incredibly fragile by the end of her life.

That's about what I was thinking, but it seems as if the dog would have not only flinched but howled at the pain. But if she howled at falling anyway, it probably wouldn't have been super clear in everyone's remembrance exactly when she cried out, given all the to-do there undoubtedly was afterward.